Long in coming, NewHolly is just
about complete

Wednesday, June 22, 2005
By PAUL NYHAN / SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

After more than a decade of work, the transformation of Holly Park into NewHolly -- Seattle's latest approach to housing poor families by placing them in the midst of middle-class families -- is nearly complete.

Yesterday, politicians, residents and housing officials marked the end of the public development, led by the Seattle Housing Authority, of acres of homes in Rainier Valley that will house lower-, moderate- and middle-income families.

Over the past 12 years, builders have worked to transform the once-troubled housing complex.

By yesterday, they had completed all of NewHolly's rental housing and sold or rented nearly all of the homes dedicated to low-income residents. Private firms are still developing homes at NewHolly that will sell at market rates.

The colorful houses with low fences on the narrow streets of NewHolly create a different neighborhood from the old Holly Park, a complex of wooden homes that dated back to the 1940s and was saddled with high unemployment, drug use and crime rates.

"At some point this place was scary," Gary Pope, who bought a NewHolly home five years ago, said at a public ceremony yesterday. "Over time, all of that subsided."

The $340 million development is also an attempt to repair the mistakes of the past.

U.S. cities are littered with failed efforts to house low-income residents, from towering but crime-ridden Chicago high-rises to sprawling but aging Virginia town homes.

NewHolly represents the latest experiment. Within its 118 acres are rental housing for the city's poorest residents, rental homes for moderate-income families and homes available for sale.

The housing stock is evenly split among all three categories.

And the development is no longer cut off from the rest of Seattle, as it sits on the future light rail route.

The redevelopment created some disruption. For example, the plan called for destroying and then replacing 871 low-income housing units, according to the Seattle Housing Authority.

So far, the agency says, it has replaced 89 percent of those units and has pledged to replace the entire stock.